Maehara's meagre inheritance

Japan's opposition

Sep 22nd 2005 TOKYO
From The Economist print edition

A promising young politician takes over a party in disarray

IT WOULD have been better had he won the job sooner. Alas, before Seiji Maehara could take over as head of the Democratic Party of Japan, the DPJ had to lose another election and its previous leader, Katsuya Okada, had to resign. Unfortunately, Mr Okada did not just perform badly before giving up his post. He first made a terrible decision—to have the DPJ vote against Junichiro Koizumi's postal privatisation scheme this summer—and then let the prime minister run rings around him in the campaign that followed.

So on September 17th, a week after losing more than one-third of their 177 seats in the lower house of parliament, stunned DPJ members chose the 43-year-old Mr Maehara as their new leader. He is the fourth opposition leader Mr Koizumi has faced in his four-and-a-half years as prime minister, and his main task is to find a new role for the battered opposition.

Its previous, self-proclaimed, role now seems irrelevant. That was to foster reform by engineering a change of government and replacing the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has governed Japan almost continuously since 1955. Now that the DPJ has only 113 seats in the 480-seat lower house, those dreams are clearly on hold. Instead, Mr Maehara must settle for trying to hold the LDP to its promises, while gradually restoring some of his party's shattered reputation. In the process, he can still probably do Japan some good.

Mr Maehara will certainly be a match for Mr Koizumi on foreign policy. The prime minister has too often seemed to stray from a laudable version of Japanese assertiveness, involving more confidence and a greater global role, to one that seems needlessly close to an old-style nationalism that does the country no favours.

Mr Maehara has championed the first sort, arguing that Japan should shake off the timidity and self-doubt that have kept its “self-defence forces” from playing a useful role in international peacekeeping. He wants to update some of the rules so that, for example, Japanese troops in Iraq can defend themselves and others more effectively if attacked. While making the case for this sort of modernisation, the articulate and telegenic Mr Maehara may prove adept at taking the prime minister to task for provoking Japan's neighbours by, for instance, visiting the Yasukuni war-dead shrine in Tokyo.

Although it is not Mr Maehara's forte, there will also be important domestic issues to debate. The DPJ's new leader seems wise enough to accept that postal privatisation is not one of them. Voters clearly agree with Mr Koizumi that Japan Post's ¥330 trillion ($3 trillion) of assets no longer belong in state hands, and have just handed him a two-thirds majority to prove it. Mr Maehara will no doubt point out the flaws in the LDP's implementation during a special parliamentary session this autumn to pass the privatisation bills. But otherwise there is little left to debate.

Instead, Mr Maehara is gearing up for battles over pensions and health care, which voters probably care much more about. On these issues, there is much of substance to discuss. Despite taking helpful steps last year to close a financing gap in the pension system, Mr Koizumi has said little more about either issue publicly. The DPJ will press for more sweeping changes.

Apart from that, the main issues on which the LDP will be tested involve its willingness to shrink the state now that Mr Koizumi has won it a large majority. The DPJ campaigned for deeper cuts than Mr Koizumi has offered, but many of its members are former Socialists who dislike this idea. Mr Maehara may upset them by arguing for more cuts, but he will probably do it anyway. Now that the party is so weak, it matters less that it is also divided.

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